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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Gender differences in illness',
	'<{subtitle}>' => 'Written in <span title="Introduction to Health Psychology (previously known as Introduction to Human Psychology)">PSYC 1111</span> by <a href="https://y.st./">Alexand(er|ra) Yst</a>, finalised on 2018-10-24',
	'<{copyright year}>' => '2018',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>
	We&apos;ve learned in this unit that some symptoms and illnesses show a difference between genders and why some do not.
	In this paper, we discuss reasons why that may be.
	To do this, we need to properly understand what gender is though.
	Our reading material for the week makes claims such as that hormones may be partly to blame.
	This doesn&apos;t actually make any sense though, as hormones are tied to a person&apos;s sex, not their gender.
	So to begin, we need to briefly explain what gender is and what it isn&apos;t, by comparing and contrasting it with sex.
</p>
<h2>Sex verses gender</h2>
<p>
	To put it simply, a person&apos;s sex is defined by the configuration of their sex organs.
	In humans, the external part of the sex organs are located between the legs, with the inner part being inside the torso.
	Do you have a labia, vagina, uterus, and ovaries?
	Then you&apos;re a female.
	Do you instead have a scrotum, penis, prostate, testes?
	In that case, you&apos;re a male.
	Some people also have mixed or partial genitalia.
	These people are intersex.
</p>
<p>
	Gender, on the other hand, is defined by what&apos;s in the mind.
	Masculine and feminine are the binary genders, though there are also people that fall outside this two-box system.
	Though there are many sub-groups, these others are collectively called the non-binary genders.
	Men are those of the masculine gender, not necessarily the male sex.
	Likewise, women are those of the feminine gender, not necessarily the female sex.
</p>
<p>
	People of different sexes have different physical biology.
	It makes sense that males and females have different hormone levels.
	However, a male man and a female man will both have higher levels of testosterone than a female woman or a female man.
	Hormone levels are tied to sex, not gender.
</p>
<p>
	Some of gender is determined by biology.
	Masculine brains and feminine brains are structured a bit differently than one another.
	But that&apos;s just the thing: it&apos;s not males and female brains that see the difference; brain structure is tied to gender, not sex!
	Modern medicine is currently even developing a brain-scanning technique that can tell people if their gender matches their sex (Bodkin, 2018).
</p>
<h2>Gender roles</h2>
<p>
	Despite gender being defined by the brain, much of it is still learned.
	It&apos;s in part a societal construct.
	For example, in the past, high heels and the colour pink were both considered very manly (Newman, 2018).
	Flash forward to today, and we&apos;re instead taught that these things are feminine and men tend to avoid them like the plague just to prove they&apos;re not girls.
	We&apos;re told that men seem to experience less pain and other symptoms, but women live longer (Ogden, 2017).
	So why is that?
</p>
<p>
	In our society, women are encouraged to take care of themselves and their own health.
	This leads to certain behaviours, such as regular medical check-ups and timely doctor visits when there&apos;s a problem (Ogden, 2017).
	Men are instead pressured to shrug off the pain and ignore it.
	They&apos;re told they shouldn&apos;t be weak enough to need help, such as medical help from trained professionals.
	This leads to men trying to be macho by letting illness and injury take its natural course, instead.
	Sure, the body can endure, but modern medicine can heal you faster and more effectively.
</p>
<p>
	In addition to not caring for themselves as well as women, men are pressured into doing &quot;manly&quot; things, which often involve risk or outright danger (Ogden, 2017).
	Death can result, but even just basic injuries stack up, shortening the life expectancy of men as compared to women.
	Women are also conditioned by society to watch their figure.
	They tend to try to be healthy in an attempt at looking their finest.
	Men on the other hand tend to do things such as overeat and eat unhealthy foods in general (Ogden, 2017).
	Finally, men are conditioned not to show weakness, and this includes emotional weakness.
	Men are discouraged from talking about their feelings.
	Keeping emotions bottled up leads to further stress and often results in poor coping mechanisms that damage one&apos;s health (Ogden, 2017).
</p>
<h2>Exemptions</h2>
<p>
	On the other hand, some illnesses aren&apos;t caused by a behavioural trait, and some symptoms aren&apos;t the kind society pressures one gender into ignoring.
	For example, men aren&apos;t considered &quot;unmanly&quot; if they have hearing or vision troubles, nor do they have a way to convince themselves they don&apos;t have such issues and just carry on.
	Colds and flues are another example of something that seems universal across genders (Ogden, 2017).
	The immune system between genders is equal, so there&apos;s no reason germs or viruses would attack people of one gender more than the other.
</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>
	As far as symptom perception, I think the cause of the gender divide is pretty obvious here.
	Men endure the pain until they&apos;re used to it.
	With pain being more of a norm for them, it doesn&apos;t register as much.
	Women, on the other hand, get it taken care of.
	Pain isn&apos;t as normal, so when they feel it, they known something&apos;s wrong and try to get it taken care of.
	A man&apos;s brain is simply conditioned not to perceive pain as much because of societal pressures placed on men.
	The same goes for other types of symptoms.
	My guess is that male bodies are just as capable of feeling the symptoms, but males, being typically conditioned by society to be men, tend to train away this perception.
	In other words, women live longer than men <strong>*because*</strong> they perceive pain and other symptoms more readily.
	It&apos;s not that women are more sickly, yet somehow live anyway.
	Women feel more sickly because they allow themselves to feel their own weakness, so they&apos;re prompted to get problems taken care of.
	In trying to act macho, men shorten their lifespans by training their brains to stop perceiving weakness in their own bodies.
	That weakness is still there, and not getting health problems looked at causes further damage to the body.
	Even when men feel symptoms, I don&apos;t think they report them as often, leasing to a further gap in symptom results, as far as researchers can see.
</p>
<p>
	As far as the gender divide in illness, conditioning also results in different health behaviours.
	Because men and women tend to have different behaviours, the health risks associated with lifestyle are just as different.
	Women tend to talk about problems in life too, which relieves stress.
	Men, on the other hand, bottle up their emotions leading to further stress as well as a need for other coping mechanisms, many of which are unhealthy.
	This added stress leads to things such as heart attacks, which aren&apos;t seen as much in people that are able to discuss their feelings openly and without judgement.
</p>
<div class="APA_references">
	<h2>References:</h2>
	<p>
		Bodkin, H. (2018, May 22). Transgender brain scans promised as study shows structural differences in people with gender dysphoria. Retrieved from <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/22/transgender-brain-scans-promised-study-shows-structural-differences/"><code>https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/22/transgender-brain-scans-promised-study-shows-structural-differences/</code></a>
	</p>
	<p>
		Newman, T. (2018, February 7). Sex and gender: Meanings, definition, identity, and expression. Retrieved from <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232363.php"><code>https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232363.php</code></a>
	</p>
	<p>
		Ogden, J. (2017). The Psychology of Health and Illness: An Open Access Course. Retrieved from <a href="https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/326138/mod_book/chapter/166764/Ogden-The_psychology_of_health_and_illness.pdf"><code>https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/326138/mod_book/chapter/166764/Ogden-The_psychology_of_health_and_illness.pdf</code></a>
	</p>
</div>
END
);
